Most Delicious Cake Recipe (and easy, too!)

This super simple cake recipe comes out beautifully every time. The batter takes about 5 minutes to whip up if your ingredients are prepped and it takes just about 20-30 minutes to bake. Every person who's ever tasted it requests more, almost immediately. It's my favorite go-to baking recipe and it's amazingly versatile. You can add just about anything!

What you will need for the basic cake recipe:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• optional additions (see below)

What to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Grease/butter and flour a 9 x 12 ish cake pan.
3. Cream together butter and sugar until well blended and a little fluffy. 
4. Add eggs and stir until fully blended.
5. Stir in vanilla.
6. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until fully incorporated.
7. Pour in milk. Stir carefully (or it will splash!) until fully blended.

That's your basic vanilla cake batter. If you stop there and bake it, it will be absolutely delicious. BUT, you can make some additions - pretty much anything works. Here are some options:

• Stir in a couple of generous handfuls of dried blueberries or raisins.
• Stir in a couple of tablespoons of flavorful honey. I like the local Sudanese honey I get, but any tasty honey will work.
• Stir in a few tablespoons of rose water or orange blossom water.
• Stir in a few handfuls of chocolate chips.
• Stir in a handful of chopped almonds and some almond extract.
• Add a cup of grated carrot, squeezed dry-ish along with a 1/2 teaspoon of grated nutmeg.

OR, if you're adventurous, add a combination. I just made blueberry/vanilla/honey/orange blossom cake and it's amazing!

Then pour your beautiful batter into the pan and bake until the top springs back when pressed gently or a knife inserted comes out clean. This usually takes about 20-25 minutes for me.

Enjoy!